Best Christmas Ever
by DanyTheConqueror
Summary: Lily Luna Potter and Elia Gardener have left Hogwarts. They are doing their best to balance their family traditions with new ones of their own. They think they may have found a schedule that works for them. This may just be the best Christmas ever. Sequel to Forest. [[Lily II/Elia]]


Author's Note: I had no plans to write a sequel when I posted _Forest_. However, when I saw ImaRavenclaw's "A Very Christmassy Love Challenge" this idea seemed too good to pass up. It's my first foray into fan fiction in more than a year, so I would love to hear what you think of it!

 **Best Christmas Ever**

I was two years out of school, twenty to Elia's twenty-one, when we bought our first flat. We had decorated together, laughing as we tried to cram all our belongings into a space much smaller than our childhood homes. It had been easy, the transition from girlfriends to live-in partners, much like the transition from friends to something more had been years before. It was us against the world, building our lives together.

The first holiday season together we had decided that we would wake up in our flat together and exchange gifts between each other before visiting our families. We had been giddy, drinking mimosas and eating brunch in coordinating holiday pjs, taking way too many photos of ourselves. We had grown up with holidays that were opposites of each other. Finding something that had made us both happy was difficult enough. Pleasing our extended families would have been impossible.

I was the last member of the Weasley clan to be born, the youngest child of the youngest child. All of us grandkids were born in the span of a decade, so my earliest memories are of noise and chaos during get-togethers. When holidays came around, things went to the next level.

Christmas was always the biggest day of the year. It was one of the only days that everybody – Gran and Granddad, all my aunts and uncles, Mum and Dad, two brothers, nine cousins, and me – would get together at the Burrow. As the youngest child of the youngest child, things had already been full of noise and chaos when I had been born. By the holidays of my earliest memories, everyone had grown enough that peace and quiet was as likely to happen as running out of food. She never limited her craziness to cooking, though. By the time she is done decorating I'm surprised that ornaments, garland, and glitter aren't bursting out the windows and doors of the house, which looks like it is ready to fall over at the best of times.

Growing up Christmas never failed to have everybody piled into the sitting room, trying to avoid running into each other when they moved, eating way too much food, and watching hours of gift opening that never failed to take up most of the morning. Somebody would ask to see a gift and it would be passed across the room, while doing our best not to pass it in front of the cameras. (Speaking of cameras, one year Dad had bought Granddad a Muggle one. I think I actually saw tears in his eyes.) The group photo of everybody at the end, once the adults had vanished the wrapping and wrangled us kids into semi-organized rows of people sitting, kneeling, and standing, was a mission that even my father thought was next to impossible.

I love my family, I really do, but saying that they can be overwhelming is an understatement. By the time we got home, I always needed time to decompress. As my cousins began to build families of their own and the Burrow crossed the line into dangerously full, my need for quiet grew. I craved the sort of holiday I had seen in books. The chance to wake up and spend the morning relaxing at home in pyjamas, with only immediate family and enough seating that I could sit on a chair instead of squished between a wall and another ginger, seemed heavenly.

Elia, on the other hand, thrived in the crowd. She never saw the madness that was Christmas, but she fit right in during birthdays and weddings. She loved to hear stories of adventures Dad, Uncle Ron, and Auntie Hermione had gotten up to in their youth, she would laugh with Uncle George as he would give dramatic re-enactments and stories of the pranks he and Uncle Fred had gotten up to, and she would chat with Uncle Charlie for hours about magical creatures. Sometimes, I felt like she fit in better than I did.

To be fair, the same could be said of holidays with her family. Our immediate families had some similarities: we were both the youngest, both the only daughter born to a wealthy family. That was where the similarities of our get-togethers ended.

Her extended family was small and reserved, led by a grandfather famous as inventor of the Firebolt broomstick. When her family hosted people for dinner, everybody had a place to sit (on furniture, no les) and everybody was given time to talk. The ability to hear myself think at holiday meals was novel, while Elia always sat straight-backed, clearly desiring something more lively.

I think that was part of the reason we worked so well together. We each loved our families of origin, but we found each others' refreshing. We would not fight over where we went, trying to push our childhood traditions or prioritizing seeing our relatives. Instead, we had managed to strike a balance between the two and create something that was ours.

The differences was part of what led us to creating our own Christmas traditions. By giving ourselves time at home and setting times when we would visit the Gardeners and my family, we were able to strike a balance that worked for us. That was not to say that people were pleased when we announced that Christmas morning would be something we did just the two of us in our new home, but they had bitten their tongues. When we had stuck to the schedule as promised, holding up our end of the bargain, our parents seemed to relax.

Telling people what we would be doing the second year was easier. With the promise that we would stop by the Burrow by ten o'clock before moving on to Elia's grandfather's home for dinner, we had locked ourselves away on Christmas Eve. We watched an old Muggle film called _It's a Wonderful Life_ while making gingerbread houses (mine was structurally sound, hers had a suspicious lean that led her to say she was honouring Gran and Granddad Weasley) in front of the fire, growing increasingly giggly as we made our way through a bottle of wine.

Last thing before bed we set out our presents one at a time, both under the tree and in the stockings. After putting on the co-ordinating red and white pyjamas she insisted on for optimal photo cuteness in the morning, we settled into our bed for the night.

The sun was barely peaking through the blinds when Elia woke me up the next morning.

"Wake up sleepyhead," she said, much too loud for how early it was.

I opened an eye, trying to adjust to the light. She was propped up on her elbows, letting the warm air out from under the covers. I pulled them around me as I said, "Excited to see what Father Christmas got you this year, I take it?"

"Well, I was a very good girl," she joked. She gave me a kiss, a gentle grazing of her lips on mine, before saying, "Happy Christmas, by the way."

"Happy Christmas." I pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. "You have quite the bedhead this morning."

She laughed. "I was too excited to sleep last night. I must have been tossing and turning."

She didn't have to tell me that twice. Her incessant rolling had kept me up, not that I had any intention of telling her that. When it came to Christmas, her excitement was contagious. "Shall we see what's in our stockings then?"

Elia didn't need to be told twice. She led the way to the living room, bare feet under fair isle pyjama pants smacking on the wood floors. "You get the juice, I'll pop the champagne."

"You always insist on being the one to open it."

"Well, after you bounced the cork off the ceiling the first time I thought it was safest. Don't want somebody to lose an eye on Christmas."

Mimosas in hand, we sat across from each other on the couch and began to go through our stockings. There had been some intense discussions about how the stockings should be done (How many presents? Where did they go? Wrapping?) but those were forgotten when we started opening.

Elia continued our proud tradition of an early morning candy breakfast, eating some mint chocolates as she ripped the paper off her gifts one by one. Seeing her eyes light up when she saw everything I had picked out for her, no matter how small, made me smile. The floor next to her was covered with slips of coloured paper dotted with tape by the time she reached the last present.

From down in the toe of the stocking she pulled out a small box. It was one of my better wrapping jobs, if I did say so myself. White paper carefully folded around the cube with a tiny, carefully tied ribbon around it and curled to perfection. "This is awfully fancy for a stocking," Elia said.

"Open it," I prompted with a smile. I tried to keep my voice casual, despite the pounding in my chest.

For once, she used care when unwrapping. Maybe she was able to sense that this one was important or maybe it was a coincidence, but she pulled the golden ribbon apart gently before tearing the paper to reveal a navy blue box. With manicured nails, she lifted the lid to reveal a small jewellery box.

I swallowed hard as she opened it, not taking my eyes off her face. Her eyes, the gorgeous indigo eyes I had been mesmerized by so many years ago, widened as she saw what was inside.

"Elia," I said, moving closer to her, "will you marry me?"

I had picked out and bought the ring three weeks previously, on a secret shopping trip in the Muggle world while she had been at work. Three days earlier, I had brought the ring to show her parents and tell them what I intended to do. They had thought she would like it and I did too, but the seconds it took her to answer felt like the longest of my life.

"Yes," she said, leaning over and kissing me. After several kisses in quick succession, she said, "Of course I'll marry you."

I slipped the ring, an intricate thing that was as beautiful and complex as her, onto her finger. She grinned at it and at me, before jumping off the couch and saying, "Wait here."

I had expected the first half of the reaction, but not that. I thought that maybe she would be getting the phone to call her parents, but instead she walked over to the tree and crouched down. A minute later she was back in front of me, red wrapped box in her hand.

"I know this is out of order, but open this before your stocking," she said.

I think I knew why. With none of the care she had taken, I tore the red paper off and found myself looking at a little box much like the one I had just presented her with. "Is this…?" I asked.

She grinned. "Open it."

I did as I was told, lifting the lid to reveal a ring.

"Lily, will you marry me?" she asked.

I laughed and kissed her before saying yes. As she slipped the ring on my finger, she said, "I got it from your dad a couple weeks ago, when I told him I wanted to marry you. It was your grandmother's."

She didn't need to tell me which grandmother. My mum's parents had been flat out broke when they got married, but my grandmother still wore her tiny engagement ring with pride. My father's parents had been married as teenagers and died when they were my age – how was that possible? – but my grandfather had had a lot of money. It was obvious that this ring had been bought by him to give to my namesake.

We leaned back on the couch, holding hands and laughing as we looked at our hands. I had been planning this for ages, but I was still in shock that I was engaged. I couldn't stop looking between her and my hand. "I love you."

"I love you too." She was straightening out her ring with her thumb absentmindedly, which made me smile. "You know this is going to make us the centre of attention at Christmas this afternoon."

"Totally worth it," I gave her another kiss. "You are totally worth it."

Elia giggled again as she ran her fingers over my stomach. "Best. Christmas. Ever."


End file.
